Florence

Power Points: God at work through Women Leaders Yesterday and Today

written by Leecy Barnett

“I desire for a considerable time only to lead a life of obscurity and toil, for the purpose of allowing whatever I may have received of God to ripen; and turning it someday to the glory of His name.” Sixteenyear-old Florence felt she had a call from God for service. She just had no idea what this service would look like, but she was willing to wait on God to find out.

Three years later, Florence begged her parents to let her study mathematics rather than “doing worsted work and practicing quadrilles”, which were the typical activities of young women of her class. Her mother, whose only aspiration for her younger daughter was to make a good match, thought it was a waste of time. But Florence was relentless and spent the next few years becoming an exceptional mathematician.

In 1844, when she was 23, an age when young unmarried women were on the brink of spinsterhood, Florence began to think that her call might be to nursing. At that time, her parents adamantly refused her request for training because they considered nursing a very disreputable occupation practiced by the lowest classes of women. But once again Florence persisted, and at age 31, having turned down her last proposal of marriage, her parents reluctantly consented to her studying at the Keiserwerther, a German hospital where Christian nursing was being pioneered.

After returning to England, Florence took her first professional nursing position as superintendent at a London women’s hospital. Just a few months later, war broke out between Britain and Russia in the Crimea. Florence was recruited to lead a group of nurses who would tend the wounded British troops. This was the first time women had ever gone to serve as combat nurses. Because of a picture and a poem depicting her as the “lady with the lamp”, Florence Nightingale became one of the most famous women in the British Empire, second only to Queen Victoria herself. But if this was her only contribution to nursing, Florence would be just a footnote in history.

When she came home from the Crimea, she went on to establish the modern profession of nursing based on the statistical mathematical principles she had studied as a young woman. Throughout her life she pursued God’s call and “…did not disobey the vision [she] had from heaven”. (Acts 26:19, GNT) Be inspired by Florence to believe that “We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!” (Eph. 2:10 TPT) Be tenacious in seeking God to reveal your destiny. Be patient as He reveals it to you step by step.

1 Boyd, N. (1982). Three Victorian Women who changed their world: Josephine Butler, Octavia Hill, Florence Nightingale. Oxford University Press, p. 173.

2 Woodham-Smith, C. (1950). Florence Nightingale. New York: Atheneum. p. 37. As cited in Lipsey, S. (2016, February 25). Mathematical education in the life of Florence Nightingale. Agnes Scott University. https://www.agnesscott.edu/Lriddle/ WOMEN/night_educ.htm